I had a friend who used to ask me, jokingly, when I was going to get a real job. One day, he said, 'You are now unemployable. You're nearing thirty, you've never had a job, and no one will hire you, so do what you're doing and stop complaining.' Our first child, Alice, was born soon afterward, in 1984, and suddenly there was a big change of focus. I started drawing again. That's the point where I began to write 'artist' on application forms, rather than 'technician.' Sink or swim, I was reduced to being an artist.
William Kentridge, as quoted by Calvin Tomkins in
The New Yorker.
